Chapter 1380 A new generation of steam battleships: Jiangnan!
In addition to these Fuso women, the total number of imperial subjects who actually immigrated from the country to live in Ryukyu Prefecture is actually only a few tens of thousands, and this is actually not a small number.
Luzon, which has been developed by the empire for many years, is also a key area for overseas immigration by the empire. So far, the population does not exceed 100,000.
The furthest overseas territory from the empire, Gehe Prefecture, has a permanent population of only four to five thousand people. On the Sandalwood Islands, which is still under military control, there are currently more than three thousand imperial immigrants living there.
There are actually not many imperial subjects in the overseas territories and major colonies. The number is only tens of thousands, most of them only have a few thousand, and the smallest number is estimated to be only a few hundred.
Today, the vast majority of the empire's population, or even the entire population, is concentrated in the local area, and they need food to feed them.
Li Xuan himself has estimated that if there is no huge breakthrough in technology and the grain yield per mu is not greatly increased, even if arable land is continuously developed in the country, it will not be able to meet the increasing demand for grain.
There will definitely be a huge conflict between population and land in the next few decades.
Naturally, Li Xuan could not just sit back and watch this happen. For this reason, the ultimate solution he proposed was: immigration!
It's not colonization, but immigration. These two words have different meanings in the Tang Empire!
Colonization refers to the behavior of a powerful country immigrating to an area it has conquered and plundering the interests of the original local people.
But the Tang Empire was just a pure immigrant and did not do much to plunder the interests of the local people.
The empire's immigration only moved people from areas with more people and less land to areas with less people and more land!
As for where do the areas with less people and more land come from?
What do you do with the million-strong army of the Tang Empire? Do you want to keep them for good looks?
If you don't open up and expand the territory for the empire, what's the use of these millions of troops!
Various immigrations in the past were just small-scale attempts, but now, Li Xuan is preparing for real large-scale expansion and large-scale immigration.
In other words, Li Xuan is already preparing to fight again!
For this reason, after the Navy submitted the Xuanping Twenty-Year Construction Plan, Li Xuan rejected the plan without hesitation.
Just when everyone in the navy thought that this plan was too expensive and that was why the Holy Emperor vetoed it, Li Xuan instructed the navy: The navy is related to the imperial coastal defense security and global strategy, so when building the navy, be bold
For some, the steps should be bigger and the concepts should be new.
To put it bluntly, Li Xuan felt that the plan proposed by the Navy was too petty!
In this construction plan, in addition to steaming improvements to existing battleships, there are only construction plans for two steam battleships and three cruisers.
At the same time, Li Xuan was also dissatisfied with the navy's design of new warships, because the concepts of these naval generals still remained in the era of sailing warships. Compared with previous warships, the warships they built only had an extra steam engine for propulsion.
Basically there is no innovation.
This is almost unacceptable to Li Xuan.
Now that the steam engine has been developed, you still build me a traditional sail warship made of pure wood. Isn't this nonsense?
What I want is a modern steam and steel fleet, not a sampan!
Finally, Li Xuan personally made a request for naval construction. In addition to modifying existing sail warships, the navy should in principle stop building new pure sail warships and instead convert them to steam warships.
At the same time, the design of new steam battleships must follow three major principles: faster speed, stronger firepower, and thicker protection!
The navy is required to build a fleet that can effectively safeguard the global interests of the empire in the new round of warship construction plan!
Li Xuan did not put forward detailed technical parameters, because these things are not his job. His job is to put forward strategic requirements for the navy, and this strategic requirement is to safeguard the interests of the empire on a global scale.
As for the specific type of warship to be built and how large it needs to be, this is something that needs to be done by people from the navy.
To be honest, the people in the navy were frightened by Li Xuan's words, because this time Li Xuan proposed global interests.
This also means that the Imperial Navy must build a navy with the goal of controlling global waters and being able to defeat any or even multiple maritime powers.
Under such a goal, not only must there be a sufficient number of warships, but the performance of the warships must also be advanced enough.
To this end, the Navy has begun research work on a new generation of warships. This research work is more about studying what kind of warships can be built under the current and expected technical conditions in the future, and what kind of warships are needed.
Allows the navy to safeguard imperial interests in global waters.
In this kind of big discussion, the Naval Ship Administration Department was arguing every day, and various warship plans were proposed and then rejected.
Either it is technically unrealistic, or the performance has not been improved much, or the cost is too high.
Finally, the Shipbuilding Department of the Ministry of Naval Affairs synthesized opinions from many aspects, especially with reference to the Royal Institute of Technology, the Dingsheng Shipyard with the strongest technical capabilities in the country, the Jiangnan Weapon Company with the highest naval gun level, and the reformed Naval Steam Engine Plant, etc.
The opinions of many R&D institutions and manufacturers finally led to several conclusions.
First of all, in terms of naval guns, the opinion given by Jiangnan Weapon Company is that under the current technical limitations, the rifled gun technology proposed by the Navy is very immature. Smoothbore guns are still the best choice, mature, stable, reliable, and
The firing range of large-caliber smoothbore cannons is sufficient. At least the maximum firing range of current smoothbore cannons is far beyond the effective range.
Affected by the accuracy of long-range bombardment, the current optimal distance for naval battles is still within three hundred meters. Beyond this distance, it is difficult to aim and hit.
Therefore, the only choice for naval guns is the traditional smoothbore cannon, but the cannonballs can generally be equipped with grenades. The grenades fired by the large-caliber smoothbore cannon are still astonishingly powerful, and their destructive ability against wooden warships is huge.
As for the hull, Dingsheng Shipyard took out a steel test ship and showed it to the navy. Although this test ship only weighed a few dozen tons and did not even have power. It only had a smooth hull, but it still
It gave the navy a great shock and inspiration, because it proved that the hull of a warship can also be built with steel. Of course, due to the high cost of steel and the lack of power, it is unrealistic to use steel for the entire ship.
Yes, but it is completely feasible to add steel plates to the outer shell of the hull to enhance the protection capability.
In terms of power, the steam engine project team of the Royal Institute of Technology gave exciting news to the Navy. The developers of the steam engine project said that in theory, it is not a problem to design a higher-power shipboard steam engine now. They have built the first
The prototype of the high-pressure steam engine achieved a steam pressure of up to five MPa!
But how to build such a high-horsepower steam engine? Sorry, that is not their business. They are only responsible for theoretical research and development.
The Naval Steam Engine Factory cautiously stated that due to current processing technology and other limitations, it is impossible for them to increase the pressure of the steam engine without limit, and even the volume of the steam engine cannot be enlarged without limit. According to the current technical capabilities,
At present, they can only manufacture a single ship-based steam engine with a power of 200 horsepower at most. After the completion of many large-scale equipment on their new generation production line, in about five years, they will be able to manufacture a single steam engine with a power of about 500 horsepower.
As for within five years, it is too far away and they themselves cannot predict it.
They gave their own opinions on all aspects of firepower, hull, and power, and based on these opinions, the navy's shipbuilding department finally came up with a new generation of warship design plan!
When Li Xuan saw the design of this battleship, he had to say that the technology tree seemed a little crooked!
The designs of the new generation of battleships he saw had nothing to do with traditional style battleships, but they were also very different from the steel battleships of later generations.
This new generation of warship design has a standard displacement of 1,500 tons. The reason why it is not designed to be too large is because the Tang Navy has not built a larger warship and lacks a large-tonnage slipway. However, in addition to
In addition to this 1,500-ton design, there is actually a 3,000-ton design. Well, the difference between the two is only the size of the hull and the number of guns. There is basically no difference in other aspects.
In addition, the hull is much slender than traditional style battleships. Just looking at the design drawings, you can tell that this kind of battleship will be very graceful after it is built.
The outer armor of the hull is no longer laid with thick wooden boards as in the past, but is made of wood wrapped with wrought iron. Its defensive capability is lower than that of resisting the medium and close range shelling of all current naval guns, even if it is
A twenty-four-pound (32-pound) cannon is helpless against this kind of armor.
In terms of firepower, the Navy has considered that the enemy's warships are all wooden warships with weak anti-strike capabilities. At the same time, howitzers are already very mature and stable. The Navy's main method of engagement is no longer to attack the enemy by firing solid projectiles, but by firing
When grenades are used to attack the enemy, the pursuit is not to sink the enemy's wooden armor, but to use the explosion of the grenade to kill the enemy's effective forces and destroy the enemy ships.
In this case, the Navy believes that the best way to fight is to throw the most grenades in the shortest time, so that the enemy ship turns into a ball of fire amidst the explosions and sinks to the bottom of the sea!
At the same time, in order to simplify logistics, the caliber of the arranged artillery should be as uniform as possible.
Under this idea, this new warship has two decks equipped with artillery, and there are only two calibers of artillery loaded, one is a twenty-four-pound cannon, and the other is a nine-pound cannon, and the
The twenty-four-pound artillery was the main one, and the total number of the two types of artillery reached sixty-two.
It may seem that the number of artillery pieces is not large, but the projectiles projected per unit time and the killing effect on the enemy exceed the artillery layout of previous battleships.
In terms of power, it is necessary to use steam-sail hybrid power. After all, the power of the steam engine is still not enough, and it is foreseeable that coal and water cannot be added in many places. At this time, it is necessary to use sails.
During daily sailing, sails are the main power, and steam engines are only auxiliary power.
As for steam engines, the crazy people in the Navy plan to install four steam engines at once, so that the total power will reach 800 horsepower.
At the same time, in terms of propulsion method, propeller propulsion is used instead of paddle wheel propulsion, because after many tests, the Navy found that although propeller technology is not yet mature, it is still much better than paddle wheel propulsion. As for
The technology is not yet mature, so the Navy plans to throw money at it!
The artillery layout of this newly designed warship still retains the artillery layout of the sail warship, but the hull and power are completely different from the traditional style warship, and the outer shell is still made of iron!
This kind of battleship seemed very strange to Li Xuan. It was neither a sail battleship nor a steel battleship.
If you have to position it, then this should be a transitional battleship!
It was subject to technical limitations and tactical needs, and was a special product produced when the Imperial Navy transitioned from sail battleships to steel battleships.
However, although this battleship, codenamed 'New Generation Steam Battleship', is only a transitional product, Li Xuan still has high hopes for it, and named the first ship 'Jiangnan', which is the first provincial-level battleship in the empire.
The warships were named after place names, which shows that Li Xuan attached great importance to them.